I recently completed this fascinating book that takes us into the
heart of West Africa.
Long ago, I came to the conclusion that the social milieu of West
Africa made it impossible to succeed generally with the men but that
working with strong women was a much better proposition. Long term
that is certain to change but the problems in Africa are now.
What king Peggy discovered was that the money actually existed to
support a modest level of development but that every nickel was been
outright stolen in order to support a small clique of men who simply
wasted it. Yet society put up with it.
So began the slow and steady hand of real progress.
A think that aid providers need to locate their king Peggy and
outright back them to the hilt. A thriving community of several
thousand people resulting from nothing more that good governance will
put the wind up in every other community anywhere close. In King
Peggy's case she attracted a church to sponsor her community and they
have taken on the burden of establishing educational support.
As the community begins to thrive, the rest will quickly follow.
King Peggy
An American secretary,
her royal destiny, and the inspiring story of how she changed an
African village
Book by Peggielene
Bartels and Eleanor Herman
by Joanne Latimer on
Thursday, March 1, 2012 7:35am
Originally from
Africa, Peggielene Bartels spent most of her working life as an
office administrator at the Ghanaian Embassy in Washington. Then the
phone rang one morning at 4 a.m. and a relative informed Peggy she
had been chosen to be the “lady king” of her Ghanaian village,
Otaum. The idea was absurd to Peggy, although she was from the royal
Ebiradze bloodline. Prompted by a dream, she reluctantly accepted the
crown and began shuttling back and forth to Africa, where a
dilapidated palace awaited repair. King Peggy is the funny,
wide-eyed account of her struggle to overcome sexism, systemic
corruption and poverty without losing her will to lead or the love of
her 7,000 subjects.
In Africa, Peggy says,
women aid and abet scamming men with their own timidity and
deference. Not Peggy. Her American notions of equality give her the
strength to roust corrupt elders and a scheming priest. She reclaims
fishing and land-sale taxes to modernize the village. Appointing a
trustworthy regent, she uses her own money to rebuild the palace and
restore respect to the throne. One by one, she tackles her people’s
problems: no running water, no school, no decent road, no ambulance
and no hospital beds. Peggy’s story hits the Washington newspapers
and attracts African-American benefactors, who sheepishly visit to
discover their roots.
Amongst the episodes
of palace intrigue, Peggy makes astute comparisons between her
village life and her urban existence in Washington, where she eats
alone every night in her tiny condo. In Ghana, she shares a bed with
her cousin and is constantly surrounded by squabbling relatives. It’s
a joyful chaos that nourishes her soul. Divorced with no children,
Peggy finds new purpose as a lady king. Co-author Herman says her
interest in Africa came from the fiction of Alexander McCall Smith;
she thinks she has met in Peggy a real-life Mma Ramotswe, and readers
will quickly agree.
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